Endoscopes have attained great acceptance within the medical community since they provide a means for performing procedures with minimal patient trauma while enabling the physician to view the internal anatomy of the patient. Over the years, numerous endoscopes have been developed and categorized according to specific applications, such as cystoscopy, colonoscopy, laparoscopy, and upper gastrointestinal (GI) endoscopy, among others. Endoscopes may be inserted into the body's natural orifices or through an incision in the skin.
An endoscope typically comprises an elongated tubular shaft, rigid or flexible, having a video camera, also referred to as a viewing element, and a light source, such as a fiber optic light source or Light Emitting Diode (LED), at its distal end. The shaft is connected to a handle which sometimes includes an ocular or eyepiece for direct viewing. Viewing is also usually possible via an external screen. Various surgical tools may be inserted through a working channel in the endoscope for performing different surgical procedures.
There are known various endoscopes that employ optical heads, in their front insertion part, for viewing the interior of a body cavity or lumen, such as the lower digestive track. Such optical heads normally include at least an illumination means for illuminating the object, an objective lens system and a sensor array.
As light is emitted continuously from the source of illumination, it results in fuzzy or blurred images during the movement of the scope. Further, interlaced video can show significant horizontal line artifacts during scope movement, thereby reducing vertical resolution of the video being displayed.
Since the movement of scope is inevitable during an endoscopic procedure, blurred or fuzzy images may not allow a physician to analyze an area under inspection in full detail. Fuzzy images and reduced vertical resolution considerably reduce fine detail, which may have important clinical significance. This in turn affects the rate of detection of pathological objects that exist in the body cavity in which the endoscope operates. For example, clinical literature shows that the average adenoma miss rate is over 24%. That is, detection of cancer is missed in more than 24 of every 100 patients. Further, from a medical industry viewpoint, unless a physician is correctly identifying cancer in at least 20% of cancer patients, the average miss rate is considered higher than industry standards.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for endoscopes that provide high image quality during endoscopic procedures, even when the endoscope is moving through the lumen at a fast pace, thereby ensuring better analysis and detection of medical conditions.